If you're looking for a job — or just want to whet your appetite for free baskets of "crack fries" — here's some good news coming out of the Loop: HopCat is finally getting ready to open its first St. Louis location. The Michigan-based company's hiring center in the Loop opens today.

Its $2.5 million rehab promised to transform the double storefront that previously held Sol & Blues clothing shop into a restaurant with a sizable beer garden out back and sidewalk seating out front.

Chris Knape, HopCat's vice president of marketing and communications, says the delay wasn't a problem with the building so much as the company's many ambitions.

"The main issue we encountered was related to our own construction timing," he explains over email. "We opened a location in Florida and in Minneapolis since we announced the St. Louis location. Timing on those projects for construction worked out differently than expected (the Florida location leapfrogged St. Louis)."

Now, however, he says the Loop eatery is under construction and on pace for a July 28 opening. "The place will be beautiful," he promises. "We don’t do cookie-cutter designs, so this location will be unlike any other HopCat."

Now, about those free fries ...

HopCat's grand opening event, scheduled for July 28, will offer HopCat’s first 200 guests a card good for a free order of its famously tasty "Crack Fries" every week for a year. Everyone visiting during the grand opening will also get a free order of fries (because you know how it goes with people pushing crack ... the whole point is to get you hooked).

And if you're more interested in a job than a bad deep-friend potato addiction,
the company's new hiring center, located at 7171 Delmar Boulevard, Suite 100, opens this morning, June 8, at 10 a.m. The company plans to conduct on-the-spot interviews with walk-ins for more than 80 new jobs, including bartenders, servers, cooks, dishwashers and security. The hiring center will be open into July from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. See hopcat.com/jobs for more info.